Have you ever stopped and asked yourself that question? Maybe you were in the middle of a haunted battlefield on a cold, rainy night. Maybe you were looking at hundreds of photos or listening to hours of audio. At some point, we all ask ourselves this question.
I have been doing this for over 30 years. After hearing stories of my families' experiences with the paranormal, I would recruit friends to help me look for ghosts all over Central Florida. In 2001, I started Southern Ghosts and the rest is history. I have seen so many amazing things. I have heard so many great ghost stories. I have visited some of the most incredible places in American history. I have also met some awesome people. I really love my life, but I have started to notice some things about this field and I just wanted to give some advice. 
As more and more ways have been invented to help us collect more evidence of ghosts, we have started to focus more and more on evidence. Evidence is great, but that can't be the only reason why we do this. If evidence is all there is, you will grow bored with this quickly. I really think we need to start focusing more on the "spiritual component" of this field. I am changed by almost every investigation I go on. I am reminded of how we survive death. I am reminded that we don't walk alone. I am reminded that our actions and love will outlive us all. I am reminded that I don't have all the answers and I am ok with that. 
All the pictures in the world can't compare to a moment of real spiritual connection. We have all started to take one of the most profound experiences we could ever have and made it mundane. The survival of the soul is never mundane. The next time you ask yourself why you do this, ask yourself instead "How am I changed by this?" You should like this answer more. 

The Moon River Brewing Company is one of our first and most famous investigations. Since our first investigation here, dozens of other teams have investigated the Moon River including Ghost Adventures and TAPS. I don't see too many people leaving here unaffected. Because the information on the property is so easy to find, I am going to include the history and some of the stories from our first investigation here. I will start with the history. This was given to us by the owner of the Moon River Brewing Company and is used with their permission.

The Moon River Brewing Company is located in the former City Hotel. Elazer Early, a native of Charleston, S.C, built the City Hotel in 1821. Not only was it the first hotel in Savannah, but it was also home to the first branch of the United States Post Office in Savannah, as well as a branch of the Bank of the United States. It must have been convenient having a hotel, post office, bank and bar all under one roof!

Many notable people stayed at the City Hotel, including War of 1812 hero Winfield Scott, the Marquis de Lafayette, the first three commodores of the U.S. Navy and naturalist James Audubon. Audubon stayed six months while attempting to sell books full of his wildlife sketches. 

In 1851 Peter Wiltberger bought the City Hotel. He renovated it and put a live lion and lioness on display to draw attention to his business. City Hotel’s final guest checked out in 1864, just before the arrival of General Tecumseh Sherman during the war of Northern Aggression and the subsequent closing of the City Hotel.

At the turn of the century, the building was used as a lumber and coal warehouse. As the use of coal slowly died off, the building was used for general storage. In the 1960s the space was renovated as
an office supply store, complete with a large printing press. Hurricane David forced this business to close in 1979 when it blew the roof off the structure. 

The building sat empty until 1995 when it was renovated into its current configuration as a brew pub. The Moon River Brewing Company debuted in this space on April 10, 1999.

Our history with the building began in 2001 when we were called to investigate the building by some of the staff. It was a lot easier to get into the building than we thought. They were so open and friendly, it was unlike anything we had ever dealt with. Usually they are so worried about stories getting out and nervous about how things will be received. We were one of the first (if not the first) groups to investigate the Moon River Brewing Company.

During the night of our investigation, there was myself, an
investigator named JR and two employees of the bar. That night was one of the most intense investigations of my life. We chased footsteps all over the building. When we went up the stairs, you would hear "something" running down the stairs. As we sat on the main floor, "something" stomped over our heads on the second floor. One of our investigators asked if anyone was here to give us a sign. There was a short pause and then a sound like someone smashing wooden
chairs into each other. I immediately ran up the back stairs going to the second floor. Here I noticed a huge, heavy window that was propped up by a good sized piece of wood. I wanted to make sure that the sounds weren't coming from the alley out back. I knew it wasn't, but you sometimes try to rationalize when you're faced with the unknown. The alley was empty, but as I looked out the
window, I noticed something shoot by my face. It was hit so hard, that it flew clear across the alley and hit the opposite wall. It was, as I came to find out, the wood that was propping the window open. JR had seen the wood look like it was hit and went flying out of the window frame. He said it just flew out and nobody had touched it. A second later, the window came crashing down on my shoulders and neck. It didn't hurt me, but it did leave a nice bruise. 

The rest of the night was spent with some unseen force messing with us.The ladies in our group went to the bathroom and heard something come up behind them real quick and make a duck sound. They didn't turn around and they were made at JR and I. They thought we were trying to scare them. The problem was, we were in front of the building and never moved until they came back. The whole
investigation was exhausting. I know I saw a figure in white moving down the hall on the second floor as I came down the stairs from the third floor. We all heard a giggling from an empty basement. The last incident though left us cold. 

We were doing an evp session on the second floor. All the lights in the building were off. I asked the question, how do you feel now, and a voice was recorded. It sounded like an older black man and he said "Cold". Just the one word, and we never heard from him again. Now the building was used during the yellow fever
outbreaks. It was used as a hospital after the Civil War. Slaves were kept here by their masters who were staying in the hotel and it was a warehouse for many years. He could come from any of those points, but there is one final detail.

We were given access to the whole property except for one spot, the main cooler. We never went near it, but as we left, we realized the door had somehow come open and inside the door was the imprint of a hand. We closed the door and with that, we left. Walking out into the Savannah dawn, leaving this special place behind, but we all stopped for one last look. You just couldn't help yourself. It still set there, waiting for her next visitors.

Whenever someone asks me about the most haunted locations I have ever been, my list goes Gettysburg, Moon River, The Myrtles. I love the whole city of Savannah and I never take any of my investigations at the Moon River for granted. We have made it a priority to include two investigations here each year. You are almost always guaranteed to get something. We would love you to come with us sometime. Keep an eye on our events page for more details. I promise to include our further investigations here later.

Happy Hauntings

A couple of weeks ago, I got a question from a guy named Frank. He wanted to know if I had any religious beliefs and if I did, how could I go looking for ghosts. I have a feeling he is going through a similar situation that I have in my life. He could also just being judging me but I prefer to look at the glass in a half full way. See, I'm a positive person.

Growing up in a religious home, the belief in an afterlife is a given. I mean the belief that we will be rewarded for all of our sacrifices, faith and good deeds is the prize we get at the bottom of the box of our Cracker Jacks we call life. Yet for some reason, trying to prove this leaves me without a lot of friends in the religious community. Why is that? I will try to answer that, and how I have balanced all of this in my mind.
Now the belief that we survive our death is believed by every culture and has been throughout history, but the belief that something stays behind here on earth isn't entirely embraced by the mainstream religions. They believe that this tidbit could muddy the waters so to speak. If we don't die and immediately get removed from this plane of existence, than people may get the feeling that religion isn't very important. That we will live on as ghosts and drive our ghost cars through real traffic making great time as we race towards eternity with no need to live the good faith based life they intended. 

The problem is I am sitting somewhere in between these two beliefs. My baggage was packed as a child, so I can't totally shake the feeling that our souls will be judged for how we live this life. I can't accept that Hitler and Anne Frank are sitting down to a nice brunch with Shirō Ishii and Elvis. For my worldview to not allow me to go all vigilante, I have to believe that Hitler and Shirō are someplace very dark and having an unpleasant time too. I'm not asking you to believe how I believe, I'm just thinking out loud. I think the answer to all of the religious quandaries is already answered in the Bible. You see, Judeo-Christian belief is that we were created by God in his image. God is a trinity, composed of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I think being created in His image means we are also made of three parts, and the Bible agrees with me. (See, I think the Bible agrees with me. My ego knows no bounds.) We are made of body, mind and spirit. I think the spirit goes on to judgement. Our body dies. So, this leaves the mind unaccounted for. I think our mind is more than just memories and reason. I think it can exist past our bodies. The how of which, I'm not 100% sure, but I will share some theories in the upcoming months. Just to be perfectly clear, I said THEORIES. I haven't died yet, so even I don't have this figured out 100% yet.

I hope you enjoy my ramblings and will continue to travel with me as I try to make sense of this paranormal field we all find so fascinating. Let me know what you think and if you have any questions, please share.
Special thanks to Frank for this weeks question.

"With great power comes great responsibility." Every true comic book fan knows that these are the words of wisdom that Uncle Ben gives a young Peter Parker to make him the hero Spider-Man. This saying stuck with me from the first time I ever heard it. Responsibility is such a strong word. Its a burden of obligation. Now how does this powerful word relate to our little field you ask, just hang with me, I'm getting to it.

We have quite a few responsibilities as investigators. We have a responsibility to our field to be honest and not fake evidence. We have the responsibility to be careful with how we collect our evidence. We have the responsibility to try to teach others how to collect evidence and investigate in the proper way. Too many of us watch a tv show and think we know everything we need to know. Doctors go to school and spend years to actually become doctors. They don't watch a few episodes of House and hang out a shingle. We need to read and try to work with people who have an understanding of this field. We also have a huge responsibility to not try to run before we can walk. There are too many teams going out to investigate and "clear" homes of their pesky ghosts and they have no clue what they are doing. A couple of Novembers ago, my team and I had to fly to upstate New York to help a family with a haunted home. They were at the end of their rope and just needed some help. Unfortunately, we were the fourth team to come out. Out of the previous three groups, one was a witches coven and the other two groups were completely new to all of this. All three groups had a different goal which was also a problem and to be honest it just made things more cloudy and active. These people didn't need an evp session or someone to come in and say their home is haunted. They needed help dealing with a huge and very real problem. We helped them, but thats because we knew they were our responsibility. See how I brought it back there?

I'm not going to tell anyone to not do something that you love. I am going to give you some "Don'ts" though. 

• Don't start a group until you have at least a couple of years of experience. 
  
• Don't just join a group until you have a chance to ask questions and research the group.
• Don't investigate a home until you know beyond the shadow of a doubt what you are doing.
• As a homeowner, if you need help, don't just call the first investigative group you find. This field can draw some weirdoes. These people will have access to your home and family so be careful.
• Don't stop investigating or learning. Just work smarter and learn everything you can. If you are new to the field, try to work some other teams and get some experience.

As always, I encourage you to get educated, then get out there and collect some ghost stories and evidence. If you need help, we are always there for advice and tons of other teams are too. Be smart and be safe. 

Happy Hauntings,
Ray Couch

I’ve been busy recently. Real, real busy and a huge part of that has been writing and looking at evidence on the internet. There is a growing trend that has started to disturb me. That trend is “fake” evidence.

Now “fake” is in quotes because I don’t think the intention is always to be a hoax. I think some people actually feel that what they are posting is real. Usually this evidence is the result of lazy investigators. The rest of this “fake” evidence is dickhead hoaxers. Why would people fake evidence? Fame my friends.

As paranormal tv shows become more and more popular and as we share info online at record paces, regular people are quickly becoming stars. Much like Kim Kardashian, all you need to become famous is a video and the internet. And every day, more and more people crave this fame. They put a video online and sit back and watch the hits, but what to do when you don’t have anything web worthy? Easy, you just make it up. With new features on many cell phones or internet applications, you can add a ghost to any picture. I have already seen several websites with these type of pictures posted on their sites.

Video is even better at being faked. In the UK, for some reason, ghost videos are being faked weekly. As “Most Haunted” became a huge hit, these videos began to spring up all the time. Some are girls with cell phone cameras having friends hide off camera and come out in costume. This video has over two million hits.

Another is the video of a guy’s kitchen in the midst of a poltergeist outbreak. As pots and pans flip around on camera, you begin to feel it is too perfect. Several other groups have torn this video apart. They say there is evidence of someone using green screen technology to fake this video. I actually agree with them. Something just seems wrong with this video and the story of why the video was taken doesn’t add up. One key point is with everything flying around, the precious camera is never touched or damaged in any way.

There are several others, some include tricky editing, ghosts from a hundred years ago caught on film wearing new tennis shoes and even special effects added to normal videos. This all damages our credibility as investigators. We have to remain vigilant and try to stay on top of all these new technologies and cons.

Of course, we also sometimes screw ourselves. We catch a video or evp that we can’t explain and so we really don’t try. I would like to give you a few tips to look for and just bring your attention to a couple of other points.

Things to look for:

–When you take a video or picture, you will focus on a point or person and make them the central piece of your picture. When someone gives you a video and the central figure is off to the side but a ghost pops up in the central point, you should smell the faint whiff of bs.
–When the evidence seems too good to be true, it always is. 99.9% of all ghost photos are caught by accident.
–Beware when the people hand you edited video. If they do edit it first, ask for the original. What they edit out can speak volumes about their evidence.
–Don’t get involved with people who have evidence and seem to want to be famous. Every real piece of evidence I have ever been given, has been by someone who actually seems confused or even shy about what they have experienced.

A quick tip:

When we do evps in groups, we always remember our questions, we never remember our spontaneous outbursts. I was involved in an investigation of a home in Kissimmee, Fl.  My associate, Tim, had caught something on his digital recorder after he asked a question. We played the tape, but we all had problems with it. It sounded too good. Luckily, Tim had video recorded his evp session too. This was the key in breaking the case. Tim remembered asking a question, but he didn’t remember making an off the cuff remark to the home owner shortly after that. The video proved that he had and so the evidence had to be discounted. We should get into the habit of video recording all evp sessions. That way, there won’t be any doubts.

I know nothing hurts worse than having your excitement dashed against the rocks of reality, but as soon as you post “fake” evidence, you destroy your credibility. I have always said, the trust that is placed in us is very precious. Once we damage that trust, it will never be completely recovered. So, if there is ever a doubt about your evidence, you really have two options. Don’t post the evidence or post it and explain the doubts you have.

Thanks for reading and I will be back soon.
Ray Couch
www.SouthernGhosts.com

There is a question I get asked quite a bit. At some point, someone will find out what I do and ask “What do you think about that show _________?” Insert any of the “ghost” shows here. It really doesn’t matter. What they are really asking is “Is ________ full of crap or is it real?” That question is a lot more interesting and harder to answer.

I will answer that for you here today with a few glimpses into the past. I have also realized that it will take two parts to answer this correctly, so part two is coming next week.

Back in the day, I would watch Mark Nesbitt’s amazing “Ghosts of Gettysburg” specials on the History Channel. I loved this show and it gave me some great insight into the ghosts which have spun out of this tragic war.

My other favorite ghost shows were the ghost segments on “Unsolved Mysteries” and “In Search Of”. Both of these shows helped me realize just how strange and wonderful our world really was.

Once again, all of these shows were more overviews of a particular haunting and focused more on the ghost stories than the investigations of those hauntings. (There was a reason for that.) These shows made me want to do what I do and take groups into these haunted buildings and let them try to capture some evidence that a building or location is actually haunted.

Fast forward to now. I have been asked to be on several shows. This isn’t particularly a pat on the back. If you stay in this field for more than a year, you will probably be approached too. I have turned almost all of them down and the few I have done is because someone I know asked me to be involved as a favor.

You are probably asking “Why?” Because almost all of them want to focus on the negative aspects of a haunting. I have been involved in some cases that exposed something very dark or “evil”, but for the majority of my cases, the “ghosts” seem to be more confused than anything else.

Yet, the producers will always say, “We just want to really put a scare in the viewers.” This isn’t true to what I have witnessed, so I don’t feel comfortable doing it.

When I was a kid, a local tv newsman came to our school. A girl in my class told him she wanted to be a reporter too and he gave her some advice. To this day, it is the most honest advice I have ever heard about the news. He said,”You have to be change your thinking if you want to be a reporter. It never rains; it pours. There is never a fire; it is always an inferno. Every problem is an epidemic. You have to be ready to up the drama to draw an audience.” This is a good description of these tv shows now. They focus on the worst case and they have to play up the drama.

The truth is an investigation can be very boring. You sit in a dark room with or without equipment running, and you hope you see, hear, smell or feel something. Most nights, you go home empty handed. This won’t do for a good tv show. So, they have to make a huge deal about every sound or feeling. The investigators aren’t lying, they are just being dramatic and trying to give you a good show.

As they say on tv, To be continued…..

Thanks for reading,
Ray Couch
www.SouthernGhosts.com

What do we want? Such a loaded question. As we all walk in the field we love so much, the answer seems pretty obvious. We all want to experience something or enhance our gifts. We want proof that something is out there and we aren’t just walking around empty rooms with expensive equipment.

So, if experiences are what we want, the follow up question should be “How do we have them?” That part is simple I believe. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Let me explain…

A few years ago, I worked with a parapsychologist and our group would have debates about the paranormal. I know riveting stuff, but it is how you kill the time. His belief was that we should take people to places that we know aren’t haunted and let people have an investigation there. His thinking was that people who felt things at these places could be outed and the rest could learn what an “unhaunted” place felt like. I would disagree. I think you would embarrass the people you were trying to teach and scare them off for good. I also know for a fact that nobody shows you how good of a fisherman they are by taking you to an empty lake and wasting your day. To me, you take them to a place you know is haunted and let them begin the process of sorting out their feelings and begin the long process of collecting their evidence. I also found thinking like this to be very elitist. For our field to be taken seriously, we need to be more mainstream and we can’t do that by destroying interest in it.

So, step one to having experiences is going where the action is and two is a natural result of this. You see, all of us have psychic ability, just some of us are further along than others. The rest of us have to rely on just getting noticed. I have a theory that I call “The Lighted House Theory”. Late one night, you are driving down a dark road and you don’t have your cell phone. Your car brakes down and you need help. Now before you are three houses. House #1 has no lights on at all. It is pitch black. House #2 has a tv on. You can see it through the window. Maybe upstairs, a lamp is on in a bedroom. House #3 has all the lights on. Music is playing and it is lit up like the Fourth of July. Which house would you be drawn to for help? Unless you have a death wish, you would avoid #1. Who knows who lives there. #2 may do in a pinch but #3 is where 98% of us would make a beeline for. Why? All the lights are on and that means someone will be there to help.

In the spirit world this holds true too. Psychics and mediums have their lights on brighter than the rest of us. “Ghosts” are drawn to them. Why? Because someone will be there to listen. Some of us are House #1 and we don’t want to believe or are too afraid. Who would be drawn to us? Most of us are House #2. We just need to turn on more lights. How do we do this? By going to more haunted places and having more investigations. I really believe the more you look for them, the more they see you. This process helps us turn on more lights and in return will help you have more experiences. See how I tied it all up there?

Ray Couch
www.SouthernGhosts.com

If you have questions or ideas for upcoming articles, please email us at [email protected].

What are Orbs?

Orbs are the blessing and the curse of most paranormal groups. We get asked about them daily and orb photos do get people interested in the paranormal. Here is the bad news. Almost every orb photo you have is nothing but dust. Sorry to burst your bubble, but if you go into a room that has been closed off for awhile or are taking photos in the rain, you WILL get an orb photo. Now, with digital cameras, ANY environmental contaminants in the air will show up as orbs as the flash captures them in mid air. You can prove this yourself by walking into a room and kicking up the dust and snapping a photo. Now the good news is that I said ALMOST every orb photo is nothing.

My good friend, Julie Pelligrino, has introduced me to black and white photos taken many years ago that contain orbs in them. This is fascinating to me. Our European ancestors told tales of fairy lights and will o’ wisps and ghost lights from hundreds of years ago. These were balls of light that would dance or “haunt” a location. Usually an outside area like a country road. As a matter of fact, the first crop circles were from hundreds of years ago and were known as fairy circles.

The Native Americans told of ghost lights and considered them warnings. They would pass these tales on to the settlers and warn them away from farming or hunting in these areas. Every culture has its own tales of ghost lights and what they mean to them. Swamp gas can’t explain them all away. We can’t use every orb photo as proof of the paranormal. I will sometimes use them only when they are tied to areas with a history of hauntings or the photographer felt “something” when they took the picture.

We also can’t just make a blanket statement that all orb photos are nothing but camera defects or user error. Sometimes the answer lies hundreds of years in the past.

Ray Couch
Southern Ghosts